


The Clock Ticks Down by Lives

by Cynder2013



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Quarter Quell (Hunger Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26636005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cynder2013/pseuds/Cynder2013
Summary: Rue and Thresh win the 74th Hunger Games. The Capitol is not amused.
Relationships: Annie Cresta & Mags & Finnick Odair, Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Cashmere & Gloss (Hunger Games), Finnick Odair & Thresh, Primrose Everdeen & Rue
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	The Clock Ticks Down by Lives

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [How Rue Became the Mockingjay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/813349) by [aimmyarrowshigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh). 



**_2_ **

Finnick can’t get over how small the girl is. It’s not just an illusion caused by her partner’s towering height and significant muscle; Rue Gavin, Victor of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games, is _tiny_. During her and Thresh’s speech in District Four, Finnick and Mags do everything short of sitting on her to stop Annie from charging the stage to hug Rue and not let go. If it wasn’t sure to get them punished, Rue would have gotten that hug from Annie and one from Finnick, and Mags, and maybe even Pike, Davy and Rackham. Rue is thirteen. She’s thirteen and tiny and _innocent_. They all know what happens to Victors who look innocent.

**_24_ **

When Rue is Reaped for the Third Quarter Quell (“All Tributes must be Reaped from their District’s entire population, inclusive of Victors. No volunteers will be accepted”) it’s almost a relief. Snow can’t have had a chance to sell her yet.

There’s an overabundance of Victors among the Tributes for the Quarter Quell. In addition to Rue, Gloss from One, Brutus from Two, Beetee and Wiress from Three, Pike, Christoph from Six, Johanna from Seven, Cecelia from Eight, Chaff from Eleven and Haymitch from Twelve are going back into the arena. It’s against the odds, but when have the odds ever been in their favour?

The only adult Tributes are Victors.

The female Tribute for District Four is Rackham’s granddaughter.

The male Tribute for District Eight is Cecelia’s son.

The female Tribute for District Twelve is Primrose Everdeen. 

No, the odds are not in their favour.

**_15_ **

Cecelia goes down avenging her son. Christoph is too weak from years of morphling to fight off the sixteen-year-old boy from District Five. Brutus is laughing like a madman and tears apart four kids before Gloss puts a spear through his throat. The island holding the Cornucopia is bathed in blood.

Pike grabs the backpack nearest to him a second after the cannon goes off and then dives into the water after Reed. They’re both strong swimmers, of course, and they beat everyone else avoiding the Bloodbath to the surrounding land by several minutes. Rue and Primrose run into the trees together, followed by Chaff and Haymitch. After last year, the indication that Eleven and Twelve have formed an alliance isn’t a surprise. Johanna disappearing with Wiress and Beetee is much more unexpected, but before the Capitol bookmakers can work themselves into a tizzy over that the three of them have split up. Once they’re a few yards from the beach, Wiress and Beetee go one way, Johanna goes another, and the alliance is over before it can begin.

By the end of the Bloodbath, nine are dead. The sponsorships for Eight have been pulled, most of them jumping ship to One or Four. Fifteen Tributes are scattered in an arena with a ring of land surrounding a lake that contain whatever horrors the Gamemakers have come up with this year.

Let the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games begin.

**_14_ **

The first time Finnick sees the lightning tree in action is on the second day of the Games, after he gets back from a party where he wasn’t expected to go home with anyone and was able to secure more sponsors for Pike and Reed. Finnick is standing in the door of the mentors’ control room (a misnomer, the mentors have no control, they can only react) and the boy from Nine is standing under the tree.

“Oh gosh,” Teff says as every person in the control room watches his remaining Tribute get violently electrocuted. He puts his head down on his control screen when the cannon fires. There’s no risk of him accidentally spending sponsorship money. All control over that was locked when the boy’s heart stopped beating.

“It’s a clock,” Thresh says. “The storm there starts at twelve, then the rain one wedge over, then...We’re idiots. We’re all idiots.”

“Watch your mouth,” Cashmere says.

**_13_ **

Two hours later, the girl from District Six comes stumbling out of the sector whose danger is some sort of thick fog. She falls face first into the water and doesn’t get up. The cannon fires. Etta and Vlad leave the room.

“Poison,” Cashmere says. Her face is pale. Her brother choked on poison fog during his Games. It’s been long enough for the Gamemakers to bring it back.

**_12_ **

Gloss slits Wiress’s throat. Cashmere really doesn’t have to worry about him.

The Eleven-Twelve alliance has set up camp in the sector that rains blood. That’s where Beetee finds them and warns them. They break camp and Gloss is delayed long enough by the twine traps Rue and Primrose made for all five of them to disappear into the trees.

Pike and Reed find Johanna before she finds them. The bookmakers panic when they begin traveling together instead of killing each other. Johanna and Pike publicly hate each other. There’s a lot of money riding on them fighting during the Games.

**_11_ **

The girl from Five dies at 9:45pm on day two, when she falls from one sector into the next and lands in the middle of a swarm of tracker jackers. Arc’s only reaction to her Tribute’s death is a squeak and an offer to trade off with Mags so the older woman can get some sleep. It doesn’t look as brutal as last year’s tracker jacker deaths because the girl can’t be seen past the swarm of insects. 

Finnick and Thresh attend the same party that night. They both have both of their Tributes still in the arena, so it would be inappropriate for them to be seen sharing a car. Running into each other when they go to get drinks and chatting while they wait is perfectly acceptable.

“I haven’t seen any poisonous plants,” Thresh says. There aren’t cameras covering every microscopic inch of the arena and several have gone dark over the past two days (all the Victors are aware that Beetee must have something to do with that but they aren’t going to say anything), but the areas he’s seen show no hint of any plant that isn’t benign or edible.

Finnick makes a sound of understanding. They know each other too well for people who were introduced to each other five days ago. Thresh is remembering the nightlock berries that Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark used to kill themselves so he and Rue could live. He’s remembering the golden bird that Katniss pinned to Rue’s jacket before she and Peeta died. He’s remembering the moment Rue became the Mockingjay.

**_10_ **

Gloss kills the girl from District Two while the Three-Eleven-Twelve alliance is battling (i.e. running away from) a mutt that is intent on tearing them to shreds. If it was Rue and Primrose alone they would be able to take to the trees and hide until the mutt went away, but their allies are too big and heavy for that to work. So they run and the Gamemakers maneuver them into a confrontation with the Four-Seven alliance that they call off when Gloss spills enough blood to keep the audience entertained for a little while longer. Thresh watches the chase with a muscle twitching in his cheek.

“They’ll be fine,” Finnick says in a low voice that carries from the District Four control station to District Eleven’s. Anyone would think he’s talking about his own Tributes, who are hiking towards the inevitable face-off with a group that outnumbers them. The only people left to act for are Blight and Seeder. Mags is part of the plan and the escorts managing money for Three and Twelve won’t set foot in the mentors’ control room.

Just as the two alliances meet, every camera in the arena goes dark.

One minute later, Primrose tackles Rue to the ground and cuts out the tracker in her arm with surgical precision.

**_61078_ **

In District Eight, Cecelia’s daughter passes along the signal—Rue’s four-note run. As the arena of the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games burns, half of Eight disappears into the wilderness. Very few are caught.

**_61602_ **

Additional Peacekeepers are deployed to District Eleven. Three of Rue’s siblings make it out before the lockdown starts. 

**_71602_ **

In an underground city, a thirteen-year-old girl with haunted eyes agrees to be the face of the rebellion.


End file.
